Your baby might be small, but if she is staying on the same percentile on the growth charts, that means she is gaining the normal amount of weight from month to month.

Usually, breastmilk will provide adequate nutrition to about this age (10 months) – after this it is debatable (but I don’t feel like debating now). At this point, inadequate breast milk is probably NOT the reason she is small now, but it could be the reason she doesn’t gain well as she gets older. If she is eating a good amount of food, then the milk or formula will be a smaller percentage of her overall nutrition and probably won’t make much of a difference in her growth. If she is not eating much food yet, then you should look carefully at your milk supply (a lactation consultant can help here).

There are some reasons that mom’s milk could become less effective sooner than this, such as mom getting pregnant. I recently had a patient that just wasn’t thriving even though mom thought she was making enough milk. After a month or two of metabolic testing on the baby, mom finally realized that she was pregnant, and a switch to formula was what this baby needed. Be sure to check our breastfeeding section for ways to improve your milk supply.